THE BRITISH POUND STERLING

The pound (symbol: £; ISO code: GBP), divided into 100 pence, is the official currency of the United Kingdom and the Crown Dependencies. The slang term "quid" is often used in place of "pound", depending on the region.

The official full name pound sterling (plural: pounds sterling) is used mainly in formal contexts and also when it is necessary to distinguish the currency used within the United Kingdom from others that have the same name. The currency name — but not the names of its units — is sometimes abbreviated to just "sterling", particularly in the wholesale financial markets; so "payment accepted in sterling", but never "that costs five sterling". The abbreviations "ster." or "stg." are sometimes used. The term British pound, used particularly by the U.S. media, is not an official name of the currency.

The pound was originally the value of one pound Tower weight of sterling silver (hence "pound sterling"). The currency sign is the pound sign, originally ₤ with two cross-bars, then later more commonly £ with a single cross-bar. The pound sign derives from the black-letter "L", from the abbreviation LSD – librae, solidi, denarii – used for the pounds, shillings and pence of the original duodecimal currency system. Libra was the basic Roman unit of weight, which in turn derived from the Latin word for scales or balance. The ISO 4217 currency code is GBP (Great Britain pound). Occasionally the abbreviation UKP is seen, but this is incorrect. The Crown Dependencies use their own (non-ISO) codes when they wish to reflect their distinctiveness. Stocks are often traded in pence, so traders may refer to Pence sterling, GBX (sometimes GBp), when listing stock prices.

Following the adoption of the euro by several countries, sterling became the world's oldest currency still in use, and it currently holds the third biggest portion of global currency reserves after the US dollar and the euro. Pound sterling is the fourth most-traded currency in foreign exchange market after the USD, the euro, and the Japanese yen.

Since decimalisation in 1971, the pound has been divided into 100 pence (singular "penny"). The symbol for the penny is "p"; hence an amount such as 50p (£0.50) is usually pronounced "fifty pee" rather than "fifty pence". (This also helped to distinguish between new and old pence amounts during the changeover to the decimal system).

Prior to decimalisation, the pound was divided into twenty shillings, with each shilling equal to twelve pence, making a total of 240 pence to the pound. The symbol for the shilling was "s" — not from the first letter of the word, but rather from the Latin word solidus. The symbol for the penny was "d", from the French word denier, which in turn was from the Latin word denarius (the solidus and denarius were Roman coins). A mixed sum of shillings and pence such as "two shillings and six pence" would be written as "2/6" or "2s 6d" and spoken as "two and six". Five shillings would be written as "5s" or, more commonly, "5/-". At the time of decimalisation, the smallest unit was the penny, although smaller value coins had been minted in years past.

After Decimal Day, the value of the pound remained unchanged, but it was now divided into 100 pence rather than 240 pence. Each decimal penny was therefore worth 2.4 pre-decimal pence. For the first few years after 1971, the decimal penny was commonly referred to as a "new penny". Coins for denominations of ½p, 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p and 50p all bore the inscription NEW PENCE (or NEW PENNY) until 1982, when the inscription changed to HALF PENNY, ONE PENNY, TWO PENCE, FIVE PENCE and so on. The old one shilling ("1/-") and two shillings ("2/-", florin) coins were equivalent in value to 5p and 10p respectively, and as such remained valid within the decimal system until the 5p and 10p coins were replaced by smaller versions in the early 1990s. The old sixpence also remained in circulation, with a value of 2½p, until withdrawn in 1980.

Legal tender and regional issues

Laws of legal tender are uniquely complex in the UK: according to the Royal Mint, legal tender means "that a debtor cannot successfully be sued for non-payment if he pays into court in legal tender. It does not mean that any ordinary transaction has to take place in legal tender or only within the amount denominated by the legislation. Both parties are free to agree to accept any form of payment whether legal tender or otherwise according to their wishes. In order to comply with the very strict rules governing an actual legal tender it is necessary, for example, actually to offer the exact amount due because no change can be demanded".

In England and Wales, banknotes issued by the Bank of England are legal tender, meaning that they should be accepted in payment of a debt; they do not have to be accepted, but the debtor has a good defence in law against being sued for non-payment of that debt. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, no banknotes are legal tender, and each bank which issues banknotes does so in the form of its own promissory notes. In the Channel Islands and Isle of Man the local variations on the banknotes are legal tender in their respective jurisdiction.

Scottish, Northern Irish, Channel Islands and Manx notes are sometimes rejected by shops when used in England. British shopkeepers can choose to reject any payment, even if it would be legal tender in that jurisdiction, because no debt exists when the offer of payment is made at the same time as the offer of goods or services. When settling a restaurant bill or other debt the laws of legal tender do apply, but usually any reasonable method of settling the debt (such as credit card or cheque) will be accepted.

Notes are issued by the Big Four banks in Northern Ireland — the Bank of Ireland, the First Trust Bank, the Northern Bank and the Ulster Bank. Notes printed by the Bank of Ireland, although in pounds sterling, are mistaken in England for the former Irish pound and so often rejected. The only plastic banknote in the United Kingdom is printed by the Northern Bank. This is the bank's Year 2000 commemorative £5 banknote, which was printed in Australia.

Scottish bank notes are issued by The Bank of Scotland, The Royal Bank of Scotland and The Clydesdale Bank, but (as in Northern Ireland) are not legal tender. Only Royal Mint coins are legal tender in Scotland, and only one and two pound coins are legal tender to an indefinite amount. This was not always the case, as during World War II the Scottish banknotes were made legal tender by the Currency (Defence) Act 1939; this status was withdrawn on January 1, 1946. Some notes of the Bank of England were legal tender in Scotland and Northern Ireland; however, this status only applied to notes under a value of five pounds, so following the withdrawal of the Bank of England one pound note in 1985, no circulating notes are covered by this clause.

The UK one pound coin also has many varied designs on the reverse side, which differ from year to year with new designs appearing; however, all of these are Royal Mint coins and of equivalent legality. The Channel Islands (including Alderney) and the Isle of Man issue their own coinage.

All commonly circulating British coins are legal tender throughout the UK, in most cases up to a maximum value per transaction, as are the rarely seen five pound and twenty-five pence ("crown") coins. Several gold coins issued by the Mint are still legal tender, though as they have a bullion value far greater than their face value, they are never used in circulation and tend to be kept by collectors.

The British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar, the island of Saint Helena, and the Falkland Islands also issue their own currencies, which are fixed to the value of sterling.

The countries using sterling or these currencies tied to sterling are known as sterling zone countries. During the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, a large number of British dominions and colonies were members of the sterling zone.

History

Before sterling

Sterling

As a unit of currency, the term pound originates from the value of a pound Tower weight of high purity silver known as sterling silver.

Sterling (with a basic currency unit of the Tealby penny, rather than the pound) was introduced as the English currency by King Henry II in 1158, though the name sterling wasn't acquired until later. The word sterling is from the Old French esterlin transformed in stiere in Old English (strong, firm, immovable).

The sterling was originally a name for a silver penny of 1/240 pound. Originally a silver penny had the purchasing power of slightly less than a modern pound. In modern times the pound has replaced the penny as the basic unit of currency as inflation has steadily eroded the value of the currency.

The pound sterling, established in 1560–61 by Elizabeth I and her advisers, foremost among them Sir Thomas Gresham, brought order to the financial chaos of Tudor England that had been occasioned by the "Great Debasement" of the coinage, which in turn brought on a debilitating inflation during the years 1543–51. By 1551, according to Fernand Braudel (Braudel 1984, pp 356ff), the silver content of a penny had dropped to one part in three. The coinage had become mere fiduciary currency (as modern coins are), and the exchange rate in Antwerp where English cloth was marketed to Europe, had deteriorated. All the coin in circulation was called in for reminting at the higher standard, and paid for at discounted rates.

The pound sterling maintained its intrinsic value — "a fetish in public opinion" Braudel called it — uniquely among European currencies, even after the United Kingdom officially adopted the gold standard, until after World War I, weathering financial crises in 1621, in 1694–96, when John Locke pamphleteered for the pound sterling as "an invariable fundamental unit" and again in 1774 and 1797. Not even the violent disorders of the Civil War devalued the pound sterling in European money markets. Braudel attributes to the fixed currency, which was never devalued over the centuries, England's easy credit, security of contracts and rise to financial superiority during the 18th century. The pound sterling has been the money of account of the Bank of England from its inception in 1694.

The gold standard

Sterling unofficially moved to the gold standard from silver thanks to an overvaluation of gold in England that drew gold from abroad and occasioned a steady export of silver coin, in spite of a re-evaluation of gold in 1717 by Sir Isaac Newton, Master of the Royal Mint. The de facto gold standard continued until its official adoption following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1816 (Braudel, p. 361). This lasted until the United Kingdom, in common with many other countries, abandoned the standard after World War I in 1919. During this period, one pound could be exchanged for US$4.87.

Discussions took place following the 1865 International Monetary Conference in Paris concerning the possibility of the UK joining the Latin Monetary Union, and a Royal Commission on International Coinage examined the issues [1], resulting in a decision against joining monetary union.

Prior to World War I, the United Kingdom had one of the world's strongest economies, holding 40% of the world's overseas investments. However, by the end of the war the country owed £850 million, mostly to the United States, with interest costing the country some 40% of all government spending.

In an attempt to resume stability, a variation on the gold standard was reintroduced in 1925, under which the currency was pegged to the gold price at pre-war levels, although people were only able to exchange their currency for gold bullion, rather than for coins. This was abandoned on 21 September 1931, during the Great Depression, and sterling devalued 20%.

In common with all other world currencies, there is no longer any link to precious metals. The U.S. dollar was the last to leave gold, in 1971. The pound was made fully convertible in 1946 as a condition for receiving a U.S. loan of US$3.75 billion in the aftermath of World War II.

Pound sterling was used as the currency of many parts of the British Empire. As this became the Commonwealth of Nations, commonwealth countries introduced their own currencies such as the Australian pound and Irish pound. This evolved into the Sterling Area where those currencies were pegged to sterling.

Following the U.S. dollar

Since leaving gold, there have been several attempts to peg the value of the pound to other currencies, initially the U.S. dollar.

Under continuing economic pressure, and despite months of denials that it would do so, on 19 September 1949, the government devalued the pound by 30%, from US$4.03 to US$2.80. The move prompted several other governments to devalue against the dollar too, including Australia, Denmark, Ireland, Egypt, India, Israel, New Zealand, Norway and South Africa.

In the mid-1960s the pound came under renewed pressure since the exchange rate against the dollar was considered too high. In the summer of 1966, with the value of the pound falling in the currency markets, exchange controls were tightened by the Wilson government. Among the measures, tourists were banned from taking more than £50 out of the country, until the restriction was lifted in 1970. The pound was eventually devalued by 14.3% to US$2.41 on 18 November 1967.

With the break down of the Bretton Woods system — not least because mainly British currency dealers had created a substantial Eurodollar market which made the U.S. dollar's gold standard harder for its government to maintain — the pound was floated in the early 1970s and so subject to a market appreciation. The Sterling Area effectively ended at this time when the majority of its members also chose to float freely against the pound and the dollar.

A further crisis followed in 1976, when it was apparently leaked that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) thought that the pound should be set at US$1.50, and as a result the pound fell to $1.57, and the government decided it had to borrow £2.3 billion from the IMF. In the early 1980s the pound moved above the $2 level as interest rates rose in response to the monetarist policy of targeting money supply and a high exchange rate was widely blamed for the deep recession of 1981. At its lowest, the pound stood at just US$1.05 in February 1985, before returning to US$1.77 during the 1990s. There are often long periods where the pound and the euro move in sync, although since the middle of 2006 this correlation has weakened. Inflation concerns in the U.K. led the Bank of England (BoE) to hike interest rates twice unexpectedly in late 2006 and early 2007, causing sterling to rise to its highest rate against the euro since January 2003. This had a knock on effect versus other major currencies, and the pound hit a 15 year high against the US dollar on January 23, 2007, peaking at US$1.9916 per pound.

Decimalisation

Following the German mark

In 1988, Margaret Thatcher's Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson decided that the pound should "shadow" the West German Deutsche Mark, with the unintended result of a rapid rise in inflation as the economy boomed due to inappropriately low interest rates. (For ideological reasons, the Conservative Government declined to use alternative mechanisms to control the explosion of credit. Former Prime Minister Ted Heath referred to Lawson as a "one club golfer".)

Following the European currency unit

In another change of tack, on 8 October 1990 the Thatcher government decided to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), with the pound set at DM2.95. However, the country was forced to withdraw from the system on Black Wednesday (September 16, 1992) as Britain's economic performance made the exchange rate unsustainable. Speculator George Soros famously made approximately US$1 billion from shorting the pound.

Black Wednesday saw interest rates jump from 10%, to 12%, and then finally to 15% in a futile attempt to stop the pound from falling below the ERM limits. The exchange rate fell to DM2.20. Proponents of a lower GBP/DM exchange rate were vindicated as the cheaper pound encouraged exports and contributed to the economic prosperity of the 1990s. Since early 2005, the £/€ rate has returned to an average of about £1.00:€1.46, which is equivalent to DM2.85.

Bank Negara Malaysia is reported to have suffered losses of more than US$4 billion from the pound devaluation.

Following inflation targets

In 1997, the newly-elected Labour government made a surprising move when Gordon Brown handed over day-to-day control of interest rates to the Bank of England (a policy that had initially been proposed by the Liberal Democrats). The Bank is now responsible for setting its base rate of interest so as to keep inflation very close to 2%. Should inflation be more than 1% above or below the target, the governor of the Bank of England is required to write a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer explaining the reasons for this and the measures which will be taken to bring inflation back in line with the 2% target.

The euro

As a member of the European Union, the United Kingdom has the option of adopting the euro as its currency. However, the subject remains politically controversial, not least since the United Kingdom was forced to withdraw from its precursor, the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (see above). The pound did not join the Second European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM II) after the euro was created.

Denmark and the UK have a unique opt-out from entry to the euro. Technically, every other EU nation must eventually sign up; however, this can be delayed indefinitely (as in the case of Sweden) by refusing to join ERM II.

The idea of replacing the pound with the euro has been controversial with some sectors of the British public because of its identity as a symbol of British nationalism[2].

In Scotland there is additional concern that the adoption of the euro would mean the end of regionally distinctive banknotes, as the European Central Bank do not permit national or sub-national designs of the banknotes.[3]

On the value of British money

In 2006 the House of Commons Library published a [4] (PDF document) which included an index of the value of the pound for each year between 1750 and 2005, where the value in 1974 was indexed at 100. (This was an update earlier documents published in 1998 and 2003.)

Regarding the period 1750–1914 the document states: "Although there was considerable year on year fluctuation in price levels prior to 1914 (reflecting the quality of the harvest, wars, etc.) there was not the long-term steady increase in prices associated with the period since 1945". It goes on to say that "Since 1945 prices have risen in every year with an aggregate rise of over 27 times."

The value of the index in 1750 was 5.1, increasing to a peak of 16.3 in 1813 before declining very soon after the end of the Napoleonic Wars to around 10.0 and remaining in the range 8.5–10.0 at the end of the nineteenth century. The index was 9.8 in 1914 and peaked at 25.3 in 1920, before declining again to 15.8 in 1933 and 1934 — prices were only about three times as high as they had been 180 years earlier.

Inflation had a dramatic effect during and after World War II — the index was 20.2 in 1940, 33.0 in 1950, 49.1 in 1960, 73.1 in 1970, 263.7 in 1980, 497.5 in 1990, 671.8 in 2000 and 757.3 in 2005.

Online currency tools

There are two tools at the MeasuringWorth website that can give an idea of the value of the pound through the ages. One tool uses the Retail Price Index covering the years 1264-2005 [5]. Another more extensive tool covering the years 1830-2005 is available using five comparative methods, Retail Price Index, GDP deflator, Average earnings, Per Capita GDP, and GDP [6].

Value against other currencies

The pound is now freely bought and sold on the foreign exchange markets around the world, and its value relative to other currencies therefore fluctuates (rising when traders buy pounds, falling when traders sell pounds). It has traditionally been among the highest-valued of all base currency units in the world. As of 13 February 2007, one pound is worth US$1.94

The pound as a major international reserve currency - International Accumulation of Foreign Reserve currencies


Currency	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006
US dollar	65.2%	69.3%	70.9%	70.5%	70.7%	66.5%	65.8%	65.9%	66.4%	65.7%
Euro	-	-	17.9%	18.8%	19.8%	24.2%	25.3%	24.9%	24.3%	25.2%
German Mark	14.5%	13.8%	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Pound sterling	2.6%	2.7%	2.9%	2.8%	2.7%	2.9%	2.6%	3.3%	3.6%	4.2%
Japanese yen	5.8%	6.2%	6.4%	6.3%	5.2%	4.5%	4.1%	3.9%	3.7%	3.2%
French franc	1.4%	1.6%	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Swiss franc	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
Other	10.2%	6.1%	1.6%	1.4%	1.2%	1.4%	1.9%	1.8%	1.9%	1.5%
Russian Rouble
Dinar
Indian Rupee
S. African Rand
Chinese Yuan

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